The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 38

Jonas

Helena stood in front of Alya's mirror, turning each way to see the fall of the fabric of her new gowns and robes. Alya had set so many candles in front of the pounded silver that the elves nervously watched, ready to hurry for water against the impending fire.

"Your mother does not approve of mirrors for vanity." Alya smirked. "Do not tell her I allowed you the use of mine."

"She is old fashioned and sometimes has foolish ways." Helena giggled and turned in a circle to see how her full skirt fanned out around her. "Helga watches me for her. Did you know that? It seems she has spies everywhere."

"Helga does not spy, she is concerned for you, child." Alya sat on the floor and picked up a piece of chalk to mark the length of the hem. "I am Slytherin, our ways are different. We honour the old ways as we accept the new. For some, as your mother and father, it is harder. Their ways were different."

"Gryffin is not as she, nor Helga. They also had old ways. I read of their clans in the library." Helena pouted and looked down at Alya. "Do you think the bodice too high?"

"High? I should say not. You are a young woman, not a hag who must advertise with a sign." Alya looked up and laughed. "Your young man will enjoy what he sees. He does not need to see more."

"I have no young man." She looked back to the mirror. "He became tiresome."

"I see you sit with him in the dining hall, and share your table in the study." Alya looked up from her place on the floor, frowning.

"I find he is easy to keep around. It is nothing more."

"Child, do not do this." Alya scowled up at her. "In but one year you will be of age to marry. Do not throw your favours so lightly."

"He is a friend, nothing more. He should know this by now."

"Take the dress off now. I will have the elf use the length to match to the others."

"I would like the blue done first."

"Helena, do be careful with your treatment of friends. Lawrence is smitten with you, it is plain to see."

"I am just passing time, Alya. Really, there is nothing to do here. He at least can talk of things other than clans and crops and those things the other students talk of. His family has properties and travel. They are not stuck on this island and chose mates by things other then foolishness and love."

"Helena! Who do you know that has ever chosen for wealth?"

"Is it not Slytherin?"

"No, child, it is not. It is true we find a mate in our line, or at least in blood that is pure, that is all. You need to have a talk with Salazar if you think we marry only wealth. He can explain the importance of the blood inheritance much better then I."

"I need to find a new hair piece to match the blue frock." She laughed at Alya's face. "Oh, please let me just be. I want so much more than what is here. I want to know the world. I want to know all the things in the library and to travel to the places I read of."

"First finish your studies." Alya rose from the floor. "Now I need to feed Jonas before his crying drives his father to distraction. He can handle one, but three are too much even for the mighty Salazar. What with the two littlest ones Gryffin has taken as his own he has his hands full. "

"Everyone but my mother wants more then one child. Was she ever different? I sometimes think Erwin would have liked to have a son." Helena struggled back into her school robes.

"That is not a question to ask me." Alya looked away, feigning interest in the new garments strewn around the room. "I think perhaps you are enough of a handful for her."

"She will not give me a straight answer, and father is away." She sighed as she gathered up her quills and parchment for lessons. "Anyway, she is in the library again."

"She and Elmira are cataloguing the books." Alya watched as Helena hurried to the door.

"I study as many hours as she. Really, I do. I just cannot get some of the things to stay in my head."

"You will, child," Alya reassured her. "It takes time."

"Time?" She turned around at the door and looked back at Alya. "I am not wasting a lifetime here. I will find a faster way, a potion, or a charm. I am sure in that great Library with all of Mave's books I can find something to learn faster."

Alya laughed and made shooing motions with her hand. "Out of here, girl. Perhaps in you hunt you will read the entire library and be at last as smart as your mother."

Helena grinned and ran from the room and hurried to the library where she found Elmira alone. She pouted and sat down heavily at a table, pulled out a tome and began to read.

"Helena, your mother is with the other three. They are making the plans for next year. She said if you were to come here I was to send you straight back to your tower and to bed."

"Bed?" Helena looked at Elmira as if in shock.

"Yes, girl, it is past curfew. Just because your mother teaches here does not set you above the others. Now shoo. You heard me."

Helena picked up the parchments and quills, shoved them in her pockets, and started down to the dorm she shared with the others. She was angered at her mother and cursed the fact that she was once again to spend the night with the other students and not in her own bedchamber.

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"I don't recognize half the names on the list this year." Helga shook her head and passed the list to Gryffin. "Those I marked with an X are the ones I do not know."

He studied it and pointed out several from the same island as Peska, before handing the list to Rowena. She scowled and counted off only seven that she knew from beyond the crossing to the east, students sent by parents who heard of the Hogwarts Library.

"It has been years since the end of the war. These must be the first of the children of mixed blood." She looked up at Erwin as she handed the list to Salazar. "They will all be here next term. We only have this one summer to prepare."

"They do not belong here. We did not build this school to hide children who have parents that risk their lives every day. It is foolishness. No, send them elsewhere," Salazar muttered.

"How can we do that? We agreed long ago to take any child who had magic." Helga shook her head. "No, we will take them. We will think of a way."

"We will need more teachers," Rowena said, looking away from Erwin. "We will take the children. I agree with Helga."

"Then you are both fools. I came here to teach the magical ways, not to train half breeds," Salazar spat out at them.

Rowena saw Erwin flinch and his fists clench at his side. She had known this day would come, as she knew Élan would be on the next year's list. She felt her hands tremble as she picked up the parchment again.

"We have found a new way to sort the students. A way that we can all agree on. I think we could try the hat. But they will come here." Rowena looked up at Erwin and tried to smile. She had thought of Elan, and she knew it was wrong to deny the boy an education. Part of her wanted to agree with Salazar but to deny a hundred others to avoid one? She could not.

"Here," she said, pushing the hat to Salazar. "Just hold it and say what you want in students. We have already done it."

"Pure." He picked up the hat and shook it at her. "I want pure witches and wizards that do not come from parents that rut in the cities."

"I do not care of their parents. Have you seen Laulen? My gods, that boy is good," Gryffin said. "If half the wizards were as good as him we could build an army. Or is it the four I have taken that you speak of?"

"Peska is a witch and his father was a wizard, of course he can be taught. He is not a mindless monkey to learn tricks. He is not the son of a Muggle who was intent on destroying our world until they found they liked the beds of our wizards." Salazar turned and spit on the floor.

"That is enough out of you," Helga yelled at him. "How dare you compare a child, any child, to ..."

"Witch, what do you think this is? A school of charity? I would agree to take Erwin's whelp if that is why you are acting like a ban..."

"Do not finish this talk, Salazar." Gryffin stood and pushed Erwin back, standing between the two. "You have said enough for tonight. We will finish this another time."

"Easily said from a wizard who has to find castoffs to pass for his children!" Salazar thundered at Gryffin. "Find yourself a better witch and get rid of the bitch that cannot breed."

Gryffin reached for his sword as Bretta moved to grab his arm.

"No," said Helga. "That's enough! We need to..."

"Salazar, hurry!" Alya shouted as she ran down the stairs. "Helga, please, it is Jonas, he runs a fever. He will not wake, and his breaths come shallow."

Salazar stood so suddenly his chair fell back. He crossed the room and grabbed Alya by her arms. "What do you mean, he runs a fever? How hot does he burn? How long has it been?"

"He was fine when I laid him down to bed. Then just now, I checked on him. He is burning with fever, and will not wake. Please, Salazar. I laid the stones but I cannot read them. Please."

He looked at her coldly, then turned and ran up the stairs followed by Helga. Alya looked around at Gryffin and Rowena. "I didn't know what else to do. I should have known."

Rowena hurried to her and looked up at Erwin, remembering how Salazar had lost his first family. "Gryffin? Will you go to him? I know it is asking a lot after heated words. He needs someone to stand with him."

Gryffin nodded and looked at Erwin, who shook his head. "I don't think it a good idea. I will wait here."

"Alya? Are you coming?" Gryffin held out his hand for her. When she did not move he walked to her and took her by the shoulders. "Alya?"

"I'm scared. Salazar, the way he looked at me, just now... and Jonas will not wake."

"He is only worried. Come." Gryffin took her elbow and walked to the stairs with her. "Rowena? Check the other children. All of them."

They hurried along the hallways. Rowena took Bretta and sent her Patronus for Temin and Kista. All the children would be checked for fever before they would start on the adults. Rowena thought of Hogsmeade and sent an owl to Peska. She told her what was happening and to start a door-to-door search for the ill. She asked that Marcus and Karra be sent back to Hogwarts and furiously thought of how to do what must be done.

Alya and Gryffin made it to Jonas' room and heard Helga and Salazar arguing.

"It is Rhazes. We need the potion."

"I will not leave him! Someone else needs to brew," Salazar thundered back at her.

Salazar held his son and paced back and forth in the room. "He could not have Rhazes disease. We would have known."

"Salazar, he is young, he would show the fever first. Here, look in his mouth, look behind his ears. I know what it is, Salazar."

"Rhazes was a Muggle, and that is a disease of a Muggle." He clutched Jonas tightly and locked his eyes on Alya. "This is what comes of the cities. This is what happens from mixing with your Muggles and bringing dirt from the streets into our home."

"Salazar, give him to Helga. Let her have him." Alya laid her hand on his arm. "We will need the potion. It is not one we keep in stock."

His eyes searched hers as his breath came unevenly. "If anything..."

"I know," she whispered as she looked down at their son. "I should have known. He would not take my breast at the last feeding. Blame me if you must place blame, but hurry, he needs the potion."

Salazar walked to Helga and held out his son, which she took from him and lay in the crook of her elbow. "I will treat him as my own. You know that, Salazar."

"You will take the second potion." Salazar laid his hand on her stomach. "It is worse on the unborn."

"I know." She looked at him and chewed her lips. "I wish I were wrong for both our sakes."

He nodded and headed to the door, then stopped and turned to Alya. "Find my class list. Send me the oldest two years. It is a simple potion, and the supplies all grow in that patch of weeds we call Helga's Garden. The witches will take it first, then the rest of the adults."

"I agree," Helga said. "If the children catch the sickness we will need to have everyone to help care for them."

Bretta came hurrying up to Gryffin. "Peska's owl came back. She is worried for Laulen."

"He should go away." Erwin ran his hand though his hair.

"To where? Where does he have to go?" Helga shook her head.

"If many get this sickness he will feel it a thousand times," Erwin looked at Rowena. "Would Salazar's chamber protect him?"

Rowena went to him and shook her head. "Take him home, Erwin. Take him to your Leigh. Perhaps she can help."

"Ro?" He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. "I promised you, I promised I would not..."

"Go, before I come to my senses." She tried to smile but felt a tear slide down her cheek. "His life is not worth my pride. Take enough potions for them as well."

"Rowena, I will ..."

"No, I cannot talk of it more." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Just go."

He nodded and gently brushed her lips with his before hurrying out to collect two brooms for his trip.

The next three days found first Salazar and then Helga instructing students on the brewing of the potion. Rowena would stop in the lab to pick up the fresh vials and take them throughout the school as they needed. Into the second day, they began to give potions to those not yet sick and by the third, even those in Hogsmeade had swallowed what they needed. They slept for short snatches at a time and ate only when the elves pestered them and shoved food into their hands.

Erwin had taken Laulen to the city and returned to help as quickly as he could. He tried to explain to Leigh what was happening but the tears in her eyes and her pleas for him to stay had bothered him and tore at him more then they had ever before. . He watched Elan and Laulen as they took each other's measure and turned from the look in Laulen's eyes as he scowled at him.

He returned and could not find Rowena in the kitchen or in the Great Hall and thought to look in the dungeons. He passed the labs and peeked in to see Helga smile at him. "We have the potion done. I think Rowena is passing them out to the older students."

"What of Jonas?"

"Alya took him back to their chamber hours ago. His fever must have broken. Even I did not think he would live." She smiled at him. "I have only to finish this and one more for the shelf. I think the worst is over. Forty-two children sick with it and not one lost."

"Thank Merlin. I will come back and help you clean up after I find Rowena." He was relieved to hear all was going well. He had worried all the while gone, thinking of Helena and Rowena here alone.

"Alya?" He had knocked on the door but found it open. Now he peeked inside and called to her. "I am looking for that wife of mine."

"Erwin," Alya said. "She is not here. I don't remember seeing her."

"How is our little Jonas?" He walked over and squatted down in front of her.

"Shhh," she giggled. "Do not wake him. Salazar will be angry if you do."

Erwin looked at her oddly, as he reached up and pulled the blanket back to see the baby. He looked at Jonas and closed his eyes, offering up a prayer to the gods he had ignored and then looked back up at Alya's smiling face.

"Would you like me to take him for a while? You could lie down and rest."

"No." She covered up the baby and held him to her shoulder. "You can't have him, he is mine. You have your own son, everyone knows about him you know, that he is from a common woman of the cities and Rowena not your true wife. Salazar does not want him here. I do not mind, bring him here, I will love him."

"Alya, I could take him to Salazar. I am sure he wants to see him."

"No, he will be angry." She licked her lips and looked around. "He will want to bury him. I cannot let him do that. Not to Jonas, not my Jonas."

Erwin heard someone behind him and slowly turned to see Salazar standing in the door. He stood and faced him, at loss of what to say.

"She has been like that since this morning." He leaned against the doorframe and looked at Alya. "She does not know I am here. I must say, at least she spoke to you."

"I am sorry. I don't know what to say." Erwin swallowed hard and turned back to the witch rocking her dead baby.

"Alya?" He squatted down in front of her again. "Please, let me have him. I will make sure he is well taken care of."

"He is to have a grand ball in one week's time. It is his naming ceremony, you know. Helena is invited." She kissed the top of Jonas's head.

"Alya, look at me."

"No, he sent you. I know he did." She turned away from him. "He will be mad at me."

"Why would he be mad at you?"

"Shhh, I can't say it aloud." She turned her face to his and crooked her finger to bring him closer. "His Krista died with their son, but I am still alive. He found it noble in her. He will see it as a weakness in me."

Erwin looked over his shoulder to where Salazar leaned on the door fame, and then stood and walked over to him. He placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

"I cannot pretend to know your mind or what this feels like. I hope I never do. " He shook his head. "Salazar, she needs you."

"She needs her son to live." He looked at her coldly. "She needs a husband that does not give her dead sons."

"My gods, man, this is not your fault, nor is it hers. Do you forget what it was like before she came? Can you say that you were better without her?" He looked back at Alya as she began to sing to the baby. "You know what others have gone though, and you know that Alya does not have their strength."

"I cannot do this again," Salazar said.

"This time you will have help." Erwin tore his eyes away from Alya. "This time your wife lives, although it sounds as if she regrets that fact. She thinks she has disappointed you in not dying."

"I did this. She did not want to live in the dungeon and I insisted. She did not want to raise a child in this place. She wanted to live in the ..."

"Salazar, she is here because she wants to be. She would not be here if she did not want this life."

Salazar looked at her and clenched his jaw, unable to make a move toward her. All he could see was his own madness and closed his eyes against it. He saw her on the back of his eyelids on the day he had brought her to this valley and remembered how she had fought him until he had given in to her demands, and then she laughed and did as he wanted anyway. He opened his eyes and knew what he wanted was her laughter. If she would just laugh with him again, all would be right.

Kneeling in front of her, he lifted his hand to her face and brushed away her single tear with the pad of his thumb.

"We will bury him on the summit." Salazar gently took his son from her arms. "We will prepare him with oils, and wrap him in fine linens. We will rend our clothing and walk to his burial barefoot. I will prepare his grave and you will push the earth over him."

"I will lay out the salted fish, hard bread and wine for guests," she whispered. "I will give everyone a gold coin and then we will have a great fire and dance though the night and be happy that he has gone in peace and will never know thirst or hunger."

"And we will be happy he is with the gods." Salazar cupped her cheek with his free hand. "Say it, Alya, please say it."

"And we will be happy he is with his gods, and we will take his name to the circle like in the old days and give his name to the old ones. Salazar," she gasped and fell forward into him. "It hurts."

"I know, it will for a long time."

"There are books, books Elmira found that ..."

"And we will be happy he is with his gods, Alya." He lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her palm. "The black spells curse the soul and do not bring the whole person back."

He stood up with the baby, fighting back his own tears.

"Come." He held out his hand to her. "We need to care for our son."

AN: Measles, first described by a Persian doctor in 7^th century by the name of Rhazes.